It’s not easy losing both your parents in your twenties.

And the grief? It’s a sucker punch to the gut.

It’s like a sharp-toothed creature inside your chest. Like a waning chasm crawling up your throat. Like an animal barrelling through your ribcage.

Grief is lethargic. It has an insatiable appetite. It fills you up with fury, sucks you into quicksand, and buries you under mounds of duvet covers. It sneaks suddenly around corners and reduces you to tears in seconds.

In other words? Grief is a complicated beast. 

But grief is also absolutely fundamental. It’s the recovery process of how we mentally and physically deal with the loss of a loved one.

I should know. I’ve been doing it for ten years already, and I’ve just had to start from square one again.

First Mum, then Dad: two deaths in ten years

In January 2009, two months before I turned 21, my mum died from a sudden, unexpected recurrence of cancer. It was quick and brutal: the time from terminal diagnosis to her death was just two weeks.

I didn’t understand what had happened, and neither did my dad. I was at university at the time, and a week after the funeral I numbly went back to class because I had no clue what else to do.

Fast forward eight years to March 2017, when my dad’s lung fibrosis got so bad he stayed in hospital for a month and had a pacemaker fitted. My friends all told me to be positive, but I knew from the doctors expressions and from my dad’s increasing exhaustion that this was it. Death was going to happen again, and it was going to be soon.

In October 2017 my dad passed away. This time around we were ‘ready’ – as much as you ever can be – and because I’d met death before, I reasoned it might be easier.

Nope.

Coping with my dad’s death has been an entirely new experience. Now I feel rudderless: with no parents or siblings I am officially the only living member of my family, and my entire identity feels irrevocably different.

And yet? As a daughter mourning her mother then her father, I know just how common this scenario actually is – and the importance of understanding how to navigate grief.

What I’ve learned about grief

The vast majority of us will have to face the death of our parents: I’ve just been dealt it earlier in life than most. So now I’m writing about the ways I’ve seen my grief and tried my best to tame it, because if I can help just one person dealing with something similar it’ll be worth the work.

And if you are reading this from a place of grief, I’m so sorry.

I see you. I’m here for you. And I promise you it’s going to get better.

---

Pin me for later

---

There are laws that follow death

When my mum died I wasn’t responsible for any of the ‘death-admin’ – but I had to do everything for my dad. Luckily he was a very pragmatic person, so we’d gone through all his finances beforehand (what bank accounts he had, how much was in them, which direct debits came out of which accounts etc) and it saved me a huge amount of stress.

To keep track, I kept a document open on my laptop which was added to daily, and also had a notebook where I jotted down every important bit of information from numerous phone calls. I also recorded a lot of calls with an app on my phone, because I knew I’d forget virtually everything the minute I hung up.

That’s due to the shock. There’s a lot you’re expected to be able to do, all of which feels like a joke. But the most important legal practicalities which need to be done are these:

• Getting a death certificate from a doctor
• Registering the death at the local registry office
• Deciding whether or not to see ‘the body’
•  Finding a funeral director (and paying them a huge amount of money)
• Choosing a funeral date & time and telling everyone
• Contacting the banks and utility providers to let them know
• Finding the will

Arranging a funeral is both ridiculous and an oddly useful distraction 

Making funeral decisions feels utterly surreal. This person was alive just days ago and now someone is asking you about coffin wood colours – but the quicker you get this organised and off your plate, the better. These decisions are one-time-only, which is a relief.

The biggest issues to face:

• Burial or cremation?
• Open casket or not? (this isn’t too common in the UK)
• Religious service or not?
• Who’s going to speak at the funeral? Readings, eulogy etc
• Will there be a wake? If so, where/when/do you need to reserve a space?

Remember that you’re absolutely allowed to ask for help with all of these decisions. At one point I was so overwhelmed when someone started pressuring me about which hymns to choose for my dad’s service – so I asked a family friend (who knows her hymns) to give me a list of five and I chose my three favourites. Same with funeral readings: I knew I wanted to do my dad’s eulogy and knew who should do the readings but I didn’t know what – so I just asked them to decide.

This rings true for needing physical support during this time too. Ask someone to go with you to all these places — the funeral home, the church to plan the service, the graveyard, the banks. It’s worth having a second pair of ears digesting all the info you’re given, because grief is a great memory zapper.

After the funeral is over, time begins to feel somewhat warped

This is perhaps when true realisation begins to set in: that this person you loved has actually gone. There are days which seem to disappear, and minutes which feel like hours. You might find yourself in the kitchen and not remember how you got there.

This is grief beginning to show itself.

It can be scary, all-encompassing, overwhelming – a whole host of buzzwords which never quite fit, and also WHO CARES because you can’t believe what’s happening to you.

People do care. You care. You’re going to be nicer to yourself now than you’ve ever been. And you’re absolutely going to get through this.

Identify your support network and guard it fiercely

In any recovery process, a good support network is invaluable. With no parents I feel acutely vulnerable, and sometimes I worry that my friends can never replicate the love my parents gave me.

But they’re my friends for a reason. They know and love me in a different way to my parents. They’re able to share the emotional weight of supporting me, and they can buoy me up in ways I don’t expect.

They’re able to help with the unforeseen admin that starts to pop up. Unexpected phone calls from that one distant relative you forgot to tell, who’s devastated they missed the funeral; the car insurance company who claim they’re still owed money and demand to speak to your late father.

However, some people are unsure if you’re in need of their help. If these friends and family somehow aren’t aware you regard them as part of your support system, tell them!

Try to assuage any feelings of guilt – you deserve ANYTHING that makes you happy right now

The first few months after Dad’s death I spent more on Deliveroo than I think I ever have. My ability to buy groceries, much less cook them, went totally out of the window – but I gave myself a complete free pass.

Comfort food and online shopping are two things I can recommend for a shallow rush of endorphins on a regular basis. Just avoid looking at your bank balance for a while (and when you do, remember it’s just money. You’ll earn it back eventually).

Other helpful ‘happy-making’ activities could be incense, candles, new bedding, softer lighting: basically anything to make your living space as comfortable and nurturing as possible.

Your emotions will be all over the place. They are all valid. Allow them to exist

Your mind and body don’t actually have the resilience or capacity to always dwell on death. Much like when you break a bone and don’t feel the pain for a while, there will be whole hours or even days when you’re operating on a relatively normal level.

That’s usually when the phone rings and you hear a grieving voice say, “Oh darling, how ARE you…”

Remember: you do not owe anyone your sadness. This is your process to deal with in whatever way you can – so don’t feel compelled or pressured to act how they’re expecting.

Conversely, I flew into a completely unexpected rage when a poor girl at our university bar spilled a pint of Guinness on my new Ugg boots. It was three months after my mum died, and I was furious — but even as I screamed, I knew full well that she was just a scapegoat for the anger I felt at Mum’s death.

Back then, I didn’t know about displaced emotion. Now, I’m aware that sudden waves of sadness, anger, fear, and even pain will strike at unexpected moments. The best thing to do is try and ride them out, knowing they’ll eventually subside.

Grief can be a physical experience

After my mum’s death, strange fears I’d never had before suddenly started to manifest. I was scared of staircases because I became convinced I couldn’t hold my balance and I was going to fall. A lack of control was a huge thing for me, because I hadn’t been able to control my mum dying.

Since Dad’s death, I’ve also gone through periods of insomnia, exhaustion, regular anxiety attacks and heart-thumping panic in my chest. My ‘fight or flight’ mode is constantly primed: I jump at loud noises, start crying at turbulence on planes and my memory regularly fails me. My hair even started turning white soon after my mum died (I secretly feel like I’m becoming Rogue from X-Men so it’s all good).

It makes sense when you understand that grieving uses up a huge amount of energy. Our minds go through trauma after a death,  so it makes sense that our bodies do too.  However, if all these factors happen at once, you might think you’re going mad. That’s ok. You’re probably not – but if you think you’re really dealing with mental instability, go to a doctor and see what they suggest.

Grief is such an emotional event that your mind is totally thrown off course. It can take a long time to get back to something resembling yourself again.

Know where your safe spaces are

For me, a ‘safe space’ means knowing where I can cry without judgement or embarrassment. Usually it’s when I’m in my family house; most often, it’s when I’m alone.

But I also have keys to the house of the family I grew up with. There are two cemeteries and a gorgeous park all within a five minute walking distance from my house, and I know the benches I like to sit on for a moment of calm.

And I know how to recognise that rising feeling of panic when I’m on a bus or a train. I know that finding somewhere quiet, green, and open is going to make me feel a little better.

Mantras are surprisingly useful

When Dad was ill, his fantastic carer kept telling me to take things ‘slowly by slowly’. My mum’s best friend often told me to ‘breathe deep’. A friend’s partner said I was now faced with ‘a new normal’.

All these phrases have supported me more than I could have ever expected: small little slogans which stand strong amidst the mess of emotion in my mind. When I feel myself beginning to spiral out, one of my own inventions is to say, ‘Right now, I feel/want/need…‘ It helps to ground me in the present moment and not get overwhelmed with infinite future possibilities.

Establish a secret vocabulary with your closest people…

Distressingly, it’s very hard to articulate what you want or need when you’re in the middle of ‘it’ — especially when ‘it’ could be any number of scenarios when you suddenly feel grief-stricken and overwhelmed. Coming up with a vocabulary that your closest people understand can be hugely helpful.

At a time when you’re not too upset, tell them that when you send a text saying, “I’m not OK”, you really need an urgent response. Come up with code words and phrases: a friend told me they use a number system so they can say, “I’m at a seven right now” and people understand the significance and severity of that.

…But don’t feel bad if you can’t write, or talk, or even express yourself at all

I count myself as lucky, because talking about death (and all the emotions which go with it) comes really naturally to me and makes me feel better.

But I also know many people who haven’t been able to voice their overwhelming death-related feelings. And that’s absolutely fine too.

During the year before my dad’s death I was journalling all the time, as it helped me process what was happening. As soon as he died? I stopped, and didn’t write about my feelings for months. I couldn’t: it was too raw, and too painful. Even writing this article has been difficult on my more grief-stricken days.

Like everything with grief, your desire to talk about it can change from moment to moment.

---

Read more: the self care strategies I use to improve my mental health

---

Actively ask for distractions

If you’re a fundamentally sociable person, being around your friends and family as much as possible is a wonderful way to minimise some of the grief. But many people often have no clue how to behave towards the grieving (like a girl at my uni who ignored me for a month after my mum died, even though we lived in the same house) – and others feel awkwardly obligated to talk about death when they know what’s happened.

I’ve become more bolshy when it comes to dictating the conversation. If I’m in the mood to talk about it, fine. If not? I actively say, “Actually I’d much prefer talking about something happier if that’s ok.” You can see the relief in people’s eyes when they realise you’ve taken the reins!

Allow yourself space to properly cry

I mean this in both a mental and a physical sense. Despite being pretty used to crying in front of my friends by now, I still can’t fully let go unless I’m alone — and occasionally I need to. I visualise it like a tap being turned on and off: when the crying starts, sometimes the tap only opens halfway (usually when I’m around people and I get a little self conscious), and I often slowly turn it off before it’s ready.

But when I properly open the tap? That kind of crying – that animalistic, guttural, close-to-vomiting kind of crying – truly feels like being wrung out. In a good way. Crying is a cathartic experience, but like an animal in pain, I’m very conscious that for me to fully exorcise this intensity of grieving and mourning, it NEEDS to happen in private.

Passive sensory overload can be really helpful… 

This is the classiest way I could think of to describe the serious amount of Netflix binging which has happened since October 2017.

I’ve binge-watched everything from prison dramas (Orange Is The New Black) and apocalyptic zombie outbreaks (Walking Dead) to gory hospital soap operas (Grey’s Anatomy) and violent drug-fuelled (Breaking Bad).

Bizarrely, watching constant death on TV has a few therapeutic effects. It numbs me to the concept; it reminds me that thousands of people die every day (whether fictionally or in real life); and it allows me a confined space of time to cry. For ten minutes, script writers and cast actively want their viewer to be crying (whether at the scene or at your own personal issues), but then the scene changes and suddenly my sadness lifts again.

… But avoiding social media is often a good idea too

If you’ve struggled with mental health issues outside of bereavement, your phone and its multitude of apps can be really triggering. Maybe people online seem absurdly happy when you’re not, or nobody’s reaching out to your subtle hints that you’re not OK.

When you’re acutely vulnerable, self-protection should be your main focus. So when you feel yourself getting more upset from looking at a screen, get rid of it. Read a book, have a bath, meditate, sit in the sunshine – anything which lets you connect with yourself a bit, and focus on what’s right for you in that moment.

Movement and exercise really helps

The cliched phrases are annoyingly true: when you’re feeling awful, getting outside and moving your body can actually do a world of good. I’ve stop-started Couch to 5k multiple times, but even if I hate the idea of getting into running clothes and reaching the park, I do feel happier once I’m actually moving my feet.

That said, when I’m deep in the midst of grieving, proactive sport is often too much for me to face. That’s when the smallest amount of effort, practiced with a ton of self-care and compassion, is just as good. During a few big crying sessions I’ve managed to put a jacket on and walk around the block while it was raining – which was strangely satisfying while tears still rolled down my face.

Eyes closed, heart open, soul ready 💫 For a long time, I’ve felt as if something was missing in my life. I attributed this to grief: I assumed my mum’s death had shaped me irrevocably, marked me out as different and separate from others. I didn’t know if this feeling would ever change. I assumed it wouldn’t. Yet during this past week, spent on retreat at @quarterlifehealthproject, I honestly feel that my life has changed. For the first time, I both witnessed and was intrinsically part of the sheer power which comes from a group of fiercely vulnerable women sharing their stories and emotions with complete openness and honesty. In yoga, meditation and intuitive movement we rose together, moved together, and turned inward together. We danced wildly in thunderstorms, connected in silence, and held space for each other in sharing circles and fire rituals. In just six short days, we became connected. We became sisters, in the truest, oldest sense of the word – and that’s exactly what I didn’t know I was looking for. Women, we are wise, strong, and so very powerful. Please never forget how much magic you hold inside yourselves 🙏✨

A post shared by Flora The Explorer (@florabaker) on Apr 24, 2018 at 12:59pm PDT

Observe the trajectory of your grief

At some point you might start to see a pattern to how your grief moves. It’s a bizarre sensation: barely there for weeks on end and then suddenly, one day, BAM! You can barely move for the enormity of it; can barely breathe for crying; can’t imagine how you ever felt OK before this.

Remember that you felt alright before, and you will do again. This is going to pass.

In my mind, the path of grief looks like a series of peaks (good days) and troughs (bad days). At first the troughs last way longer and the peaks are tiny moments, but gradually you’ll have longer peaks and shorter troughs.

If there’s a pattern to it, try to use your better days for organisation. There’s so much potential help on offer when you’re grieving if you know where to look.

Find a therapist or bereavement counsellor who you trust

Talking therapy has really helped me, yet I barely knew about its potential benefits when my mum died. My university offered me counselling but the woman I met with a couple of times only made me feel worse, so I stopped going.

My issue with therapy (which people often neglect to tell you) is there’s no guarantee that the first therapist you meet should be the one you stick with.

It took me until 2015, seven years and one mini-breakdown after my mum’s death, to finally seek out a therapist on my own. I went privately because I really needed help that exact minute, but here are the most common options:

• Therapy through the NHS: go to your local GP’s office and talk about your options. The good news is these services are free, but they might involve long waiting times.

• Therapy through your local council: I applied through my council’s website and received a call from a support worker, who then referred me to an online CBT course (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy).

• Therapy through a charity or hospice: my dad was at a fantastic hospice and they offered both of us sessions with a family worker, both during his decline and after his death. Charities like Cruse and Marie Curie also offer bereavement counselling.

• Private therapy: If you’re willing to pay for therapy, there are probably hundreds of therapists in your local area. I used counselling-directory.org.uk and read through profiles until I found a few I liked, then sent them an email explaining my backstory and went on from there!

If you’re not confident about meeting face-to-face, there are a number of helplines (all UK based) which you can phone up for a chat. They include:

• Mind: 0300 123 3393 (or text 86463)

• Cruse Bereavement Care: 0844 477 9400

• Marie Curie: 0800 090 2309

• Anxiety UK: 03444 775 774

• Samaritans: 116 123 (helpline is open 24 hours)

Involuntary membership in the ‘Dead Parents Club’ is a weirdly helpful thing

A strange positive to grief is that it brings unlikely people together. I’ve discovered so many acquaintances who’ve also lost parents, and we’ve been able to meet up for coffee (or, you know, much alcohol) and compare notes on how inappropriate everyone who isn’t grieving can be.

I’ve also had so many intense, personal and vulnerable conversations with people I’ve met mere moments before, simply because I learn they’re members of the DPC too.

For me, it’s felt really healthy to hear about death from multiple perspectives – and it’s got me out of the house on the days when I felt I otherwise couldn’t leave. It’s also a huge relief to sometimes skip past all the niceties you have to use around non-grieving people and dive right into the intense stuff with someone who gets it.

Keep the person you’re grieving close to you with their possessions

Although you wouldn’t know it from her love of garish plastic bracelets, my mum also wore lots of the same kind of jewellery as I do, so I was already borrowing her necklaces and earrings before she died. Now her cardigans, scarves and leather handbags have also become permanent fixtures in my wardrobe – so much so that I often forget what used to be hers, until someone asks where something came from.

It meant that the first weeks after my dad’s death I was usually wrapped in his cosy brown cardigan with the holey sleeves, because I already knew it would make me feel better.

Organise your material and virtual memories

Along with jewellery and clothes, my parents left me with a wealth of photos, letters, birthday cards, to-do lists and handwritten gift tags – many of which now decorate my house and make me smile when I see them.

But what about all the virtual memories I want to preserve? During my years of long-term travel my Dad and I would email all the time, so I have a vast collection of our correspondence which I’ve put into its own folder. After his death, I went through his email inbox (which felt only somewhat invasive) and forwarded various emails to my own inbox.

Why? Because email addresses, social media accounts and phone numbers will eventually be cut off by the service providers – and it’s usually earlier than you think. The last voicemail my mum left me vanished after a few weeks, and I never thought to try and save it until it was too late.

Luckily, my dad had also transferred hours of home video onto DVDs so I still have my mum’s voice safe (she was usually the one holding the camcorder, so sadly there isn’t as much of her on film.)

I’d recommend backing up their photos, phones, email accounts and anything else tech-related onto external hard-drives. It’s a devastating nightmare when something goes wrong.

Grief is not linear. The ‘stages of grief’ aren’t the rulebook

The Kubler Ross stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, fear, acceptance) are supposedly chronological, but in my experience they definitely don’t go in order: it’s not like you only feel fear once you’ve stopped feeling anger.

One day I’ll be exhausted, the next I’ll be so furious it scares me. Two more days of ambivalence, perhaps even happiness, and then suddenly I’ll be sobbing again.

Grief is not a linear process. The easiest way to describe it is like a series of waves. Peaks and troughs. They ebb and flow, some days stronger than others. It always recedes, but it always comes back.

Devastatingly, that’s it for life. It’s always going to be there – but you do learn to grow around the grief. That’s one of the few benefits to having already navigated the loss of one parent when I lost the second: even in the depths of sadness, there’s a faint awareness that it does get easier.

You’ll re-visualise your life as ‘before’ and ‘after’ the death

This fracture, this split, will likely colour everything you do. Everything you are. Everything you’re still to be. But their death will also become a type of yardstick against which much of your life can be measured.

When I’ve been casually dating a guy and I’ve mentioned my mum’s death and they’ve suddenly wanted nothing more to do with me? That’s the ‘Dead Mum Yardstick’, sorting out the wheat from the chaff, and I’m strangely grateful I’ve got that.

You’ll hear them and think about them more than you ever did when they were alive

My dreams are filled with my parents. Sometimes my dad has bizarrely recovered and wants to come home, leaving me annoyed that I got rid of his hospital-style bed and there’s boxes all over his bedroom floor. Sometimes my mum’s death was all a big misunderstanding, and I happily fall back into a dream lifestyle which has recurred for so many years that it’s achingly familiar.

For months after my mum died, I saw her everywhere. Her hands held the railings of tube carriages; her buoyant hair waltzed past me in a crowd. She was an actress, and occasionally I see someone on the TV screen who could so easily be my mum (with a little squinting) that I can barely breathe.

I spend a long time terrified that I’ll forget them both. But if my overtly detailed dreams are anything to go by, those memories aren’t going anywhere.

You’re allowed to talk about them as much as you want to

When my mum died, I received dozens of messages from people I’d gone to school with and hadn’t seen for years. “Your mum was always so happy and friendly!” they said, “and I’ll never forget how she took us to that Busted concert even though we had a GCSE mock exam the next day!”

Memories like this; memories I’d forgotten, which belong to other people? They’re absolute gold dust. They help to strengthen the picture I have of her – and they remind me that so many others loved my parents the way I did.

It’s as simple as bringing them up in conversation, but it’s also possible to actively ask people for memories about them. Via Facebook, I’ve reached out to girls my mum was at boarding school with and been told stories and sent old photos in return.

Every day you’re coping (even if it doesn’t feel like it)

It’s so easy to pressurise yourself into thinking that “I should have dealt with this by now”. That’s normal. Grief is something completely non-relatable until you’re thrown headlong into it.

A therapist told me that grief is traumatic on a cellular level. Every single cell has to register what has happened to it; every cell has to absorb the blunt force of that trauma, and learn how to rebuild itself. It’s exhausting. It’s all-encompassing. It’s almost like you’ve been pushed in front of a truck and now have to spend months in intensive care — except this isn’t a visibly physical trauma, so it’s harder to explain.

The Victorians used to wear black for a full year to let strangers know they were in mourning. When I’ve had inadvertent arguments with supermarket staff who are oblivious to the reason why I’m getting stressed over scanning food at the till, I half-wish that mourning garb was still a custom today.

Only you know your grief…

One of the best pieces of wisdom I’ve heard about the grieving process is that it’s yours, and yours alone. My best friend unknowingly echoed this one day when I was panicking at an Underground station.

“None of us know what you’re going through – we can’t!” She said, hugging me tight. “We’ll just be here for you, as best we can.”

There is no right, wrong, recommended or ill-advised way to grieve. Not really. In fact, many people reading this may think half of my advice isn’t appropriate for them at all! This is just a small part of my own journey through grief.

My biggest realisation through the aftermath of two deaths is to listen to your body. Be aware of what you truly feel you need, and follow that internal wisdom. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s been ‘long enough’. This is your journey: nobody else needs to understand it but you.

… But your grief is NOT who you are

Please try to not let your grief define you. I’ve been struggling with this ever since my mum died, and doubly so now that Dad’s gone too. But you are your own person, irrespective of this terrible loss you’ve suffered. Grief has happened to you, but it doesn’t make you who you are.

In fact, these losses have the uncanny ability to shape you into a better, stronger version of yourself.

I realise now that my mum’s death has unequivocally shaped who I am. If she hadn’t died when I was twenty, I would have made so many different choices in life that I can’t imagine what I’d be like now. But because she did die, I became a traveller. I became a writer. I became passionate about expressing my feelings, and investigating why I feel the way I do.

Moreover, I know deep down that both my beautiful, hilarious, ever-loving parents would hate their deaths to affect me so negatively.

You get to dictate the rest of your life

It’s easy to feel alone when those who loved you most are gone. But you’re not. Their love still existed. You still knew them.

So. I may be an adult orphan now – and you might be too. But we’re still here. We’re still living, fiercely and passionately, with every fibre of our being. We might be sobbing occasionally – because that’s what grief does to us – but we’re doing them proud.

We’re living, in spite of our loss. We’re living because of them, and because we loved them. That’s all we need to do.

Now it’s over to you. If you’ve had experience with grief, what are the ways you deal with it? 

---

---

I’ve written a book about grief, loss and becoming an orphan. Part memoir, part guide, it’s the book I needed when my parents died.
–– Click here to get your copy of ‘The Adult Orphan Club’ now! ––

---

---

If you’d like to keep reading, here are some more of my articles on grief:

– The uncertainty of taking a loved one to hospital

– When community rallies around you in times of grief

– What happens when you’re grieving before a death?

– Saying goodbye when someone dies

– Three months of being an orphan

– Dealing with Christmas when you’re grieving

– Staying close to those you’ve lost by using their possessions

– Self care strategies for your mental health

– How to break the taboo of talking about death 

---

If you’ve found this article helpful, please pin it so others can find it online. Thank you for reading <3